Robe shines on Slovenia’s PopRock Festival
- Details
The PopRock Festival, now in its second year, was staged at the Gospodarsko Razstavisce exhibition centre for the first time, bringing an interesting mix of pop and rock artists and bands who had battled it out to reach the final twelve.
The aesthetic requirement was for a high-energy environment with enough latitude for all to look different and cool - both on camera and onstage - where they were appreciated by 700 excited music fans packed into the venue to catch the action as it unfolded.
The 12 contestants performed and were whittled down to three by a jury, from which the public tele-voted to choose the winner!
A few weeks earlier, Crt and Greta had delivered another eye-catching stenographic and lighting design for the EMA, the event to select Slovenia’s 2017 Eurovision entry. The look and feel of this was so successful, that by popular demand, the producers requested that a slightly updated version be re-worked for the PopRock Festival.
The distinctive proto-industrial scenic steel crosses of the set architecture were flown at slightly different angles than before, with clusters of ‘steel rods’ providing further visual eye-candy. All these elements as well as the black gloss stage floor which was shaped to the room, were designed to have a highly physical presence as well as to take light beautifully.
Crt is one of Slovenia’s most prolific LDs. He has used Robe products in his work for some time, and now it is usually his first choice of moving light. “I love Robe for the excellent range, the general brightness of the fixtures, their versatility … and of course, the reliability,” he stated.
The PopRock festival rig included Spiiders, BMFL Blades, Pointes, MMX WashBeams, Squares, LEDBeam 100s, PARFect 100s, CycFX 8s, LEDWash 600s and ColorSpot 1200E ATs. All were supplied by Slovenia’s largest lighting rental company, Event Lighting, which now has a rental inventory of over 350 Robes.
With the multi-artist line up, a live broadcast scenario and a live audience to impress, Crt selected the fixtures for their flexibility and functionality. Due to the nature of the music, he needed a vibrant colour palette and plenty of effects surprises ‘up his sleeve’.
The set crosses were initially inspired by looking at the intricate structural steelwork in the venue’s roof. Taking on the critical role of shaping of the performance space as they did, they also provided a basic infrastructure for the lighting. The crosses were lit with a combination of Robe PARFects and CycFX 8s.
At the heart of the rig was a lighting ‘chandelier’, a square shaped truss loaded with a high concentration of lights – 16 x Spiiders, eight Pointes, 16 x LEDBeam 100s in a 4x4 matrix nucleus, and four Robe Square fixtures delineating each corner.
The main overhead trussing design comprised three diagonally flown squares of which the chandelier was the central one. Thirty-six Pointes were the core effects lights, with eight each loaded on to the three diamonds and the other twelve positioned around the front and to the sides of the stage.
Crt and Greta didn’t want a large imposing LED screen upstage. Instead, they decided to light through a stretched gauze back-cloth as a rear visual feature, with a mix of Sunstrips and Robe LEDBeam 100s concealed behind, then revealed for power-accents and WOW moments.
Twelve BMFL Blades covered the centre and backlighting with a row along the upstage edge of the stage deck and two behind the set at the sides. Their huge fat beams were great for shooting out into the audience and the powerful projection capabilities helped bring a new dimension to the scenery. Two more at the back of the hall were used as follow spots.
Ten MMX WashBeams and 10 more Spiiders on the front and rear trusses were optimised to light the stage, set and orchestra.
Twenty-two LEDWash 600s washed and coloured evenly down each side of the venue with another six on the outer two squares, an ideal position to highlight the crosses and the venue’s prominent structural pillars and wash the ceiling.
Crt programmed and ran all the lighting on a ChamSys console using a mix of timecode and manual cuing. All of the most complicated sets – mainly the rock bands – he ran manually.
He comments that having the orchestra and a live backing band really added to the vibe with richness and sonic texture, and working with the set for a second time, with all the basics in the console already, gave him a bit more time to experiment with new looks and effects for the cameras.
“Having this many and such a wide variety of Robe fixtures at my fingertips gave me plenty of creative options, so it was down to my programming skills and imagination to be able to deliver 15 completely different looking performances,” he said.
PopRock Slovenia 2017 was presented by Anja Križnik Tomažin, Tin Vodopivec and Perica Jerković, and won by Anabel with her song, A Cup of Coffee.
(Jim Evans)
